This has just occurred to me...I doubt it applies in this case- but if you wanted to increase your holding in a company that had been floated on the stock exchange- you could organise some sort of calamity like this, wait for the share price to tumble, buy up the shares to 'prop up tha company', resolve the calamity (for example, by having some important people resign, or close a loss-making paper) and then when the share price rebounds, you've made a killing.

As I think I may have mentioned elsewhere, I believe he was hacked to death. Arf!
As for being called Hoare; the family that owns the bank and built Stourhead have not let it worry them... The architect of Stourhead gardens was known as William the Magnificent Hoare, which is a bit gay - oh wrong thread.